This move had left the position vacant, and Booty is now stepping up to fill in. VentureBeat reports that executives said that this sets in motion a “clear succession plan” for the firm’s gaming business.

Spencer, who reports directly to Nadella, will remain in charge of the overall gaming strategy for the company, while Booty – who reports to Spencer – will have to execute that strategy with the help of all the other studios’ heads, who will now report to him.

Booty’s team includes first-party development houses like 343 Industries, The Coalition, Mojang, Rare, Turn 10 Studios, and Global Publishing. Spencer said that Booty will be in charge of managing and expanding those operations, as part of a larger company plan to devote more resources to its gaming arm.

“I wanted to make sure we had the right organisation in place to deliver on our content goals. With that, I made the decision that I wanted to anoint a leader of our Microsoft Studios organisation, which if you’ve tracked it, I’ve had the leaders of our individual franchises reporting to me for the last three and a half years,” Spencer told VentureBeat.

“That’s been great in driving our all-up strategy and getting us to the point where Satya was willing and eager to make the investment in gaming that he’s made, but it’s also become very clear to me that we’re going to invest more in content, which we are doing, and that a unified studios leadership organisation was going to be critical to our long-term success.”

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